Welcome to The Sciku Project – the latest scientific and mathematical discoveries, thoughts and ideas as scientific haiku.
Latest:
Gravity of Thought by Neena Singh
quantum physics
by Neena Singh
trying to wrap my head
around dark matter
What is Dark Matter?
Unsolved problem in physics: Dark matter is a form of matter that doesn’t emit, absorb, or reflect light, making it invisible. Its presence is inferred through its gravitational effects on visible matter, such as galaxies and stars.
Proportion: It accounts for approximately 27% of the universe’s mass-energy content, compared to just 5% for normal (baryonic) matter.
Further reading:
‘Dark matter’, Wikipedia article, available: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter
Author bio:
Neena Singh is a banker turned poet. Her haikai poetry is regularly published in journals and magazines. She has published three books of poetry—”Whispers of the Soul: the journey within”, “One Breath Poetry” and the upcoming “A Peacock’s Cry – seasons of haiku”. She runs a non-profit for quality interventions in the education and health of underprivileged children in Chandigarh, India.
This poem was originally published in Haiku Dialogue, 29th January 2025.
Language of fungi by Debbie Lee
Language of fungi
by Debbie Lee
Mycelium colony
Neuronal spiking
The mycelium of a fungal colony may use electrical impulses to communicate, which could be considered a “language”. The impulses vary in amplitude, frequency, and duration, and can be grouped into “words”. Mycelium acts as an organic network of telephone lines, sending signals to different parts of the fungus. The impulses can be modified in response to different stimuli, similar to how neurons operate in a brain. The patterns of electrical impulses could be the basis of a fungal language. Different fungal species may have distinct electrical signaling patterns, suggesting a unique “language” for each species. The average word length in the fungal language may be similar to the average word length in some human languages.
In his paper “Language of fungi derived from their electrical spiking activity”, Andrew Adamatzky applies quantitative analysis of voltage fluctuations in fungal mycelia. The report concludes that the patterns of electrical fluctuations can be grouped into “words” analogous to those found in human languages. Adamatzky’s 2022 study groups spikes into words, thereby providing a linguistic and information complexity analysis of the fungal spiking activity. This confirms a secret language of mushrooms: How fungi use electricity to speak.
Further reading:
‘Language of fungi derived from their electrical spiking activity’, 2022, Adamatzky, A., Royal Society Open Science, available: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211926
Author bio:
Debbie Lee (@lee_debbie):
Writing from places light and dark,
awkward data nerd,
elegant word nerd,
dreaming in colour,
clumsily balancing love, hope,
kindness with pragmatic realism.
Read more sciku by Debbie: ‘Technomancy’ and ‘Toxic Male’.
Lily Delivered by James Penha
when my dog vomits
by James Penha
he’ll eat the barf but not so
one primeval fish
An amateur fossil-hunter in Denmark found vomit, embedded in chalk, composed of undigestible sea-lilies likely thrown up by a fish some 66 million years ago.
Further reading:
‘‘An unusual find’: 66m-year-old animal vomit discovered in Denmark’, 2025, France-Presse, A., The Guardian, available: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jan/28/an-unusual-find-66m-year-old-animal-vomit-discovered-in-denmark
Author bio:
Expat New Yorker James Penha (he/him 🌈) has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems, American Daguerreotypes, is available for Kindle. Penha edits TheNewVerse.News, an online journal of current-events poetry. You can find out more about James’ poetry on his website https://jamespenha.com and catch up with him on BlueSky @jamespenha.bsky.social
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